1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of the graphical user interface (GUI) and more particularly to tabbed views of content browser content.
2. Description of the Related Art
The conventional graphical user interface (GUI) has been widely used for many years. The primary function of the GUI includes providing visual controls with which the end-user can interact with an underlying application. Though the common GUI includes many stock visual controls, a select few visual controls can be combined to accommodate most computer-human interactions required by an application. For example, the static text box control can be used to present text to the end-user while an edit box can permit the user to provide textual input to the application. A radio button control can provide for the exclusive selection of an element from among a field of elements, while a checklist box can control can provide for the non-exclusive selection of elements from among a field of elements.
User interface controls ordinarily provide a visual interface which permits some sort of user interactivity, such as a mouse click for a button or check box, and an insert caret for a text field. With respect to a content browser such as a Web browser, user interface controls are provided both in connection with the operation of the content browser itself, for instance through menu bars and tool bars, and also in connection with the navigation of content rendered within the content browser. Older forms of the content browser permitted the viewing of a single page of content at a time, though multiple pages can be opened in multiple different instance of the content browser and accessed through the “Window” menu item of the menu bar for the content browser. New forms of the content browser, however, permit tabbed browsing.
Tabbed browsing refers to the rendering of different content pages in different views arranged according to a “tabbed notebook” paradigm. In the tabbed notebook paradigm, a small tab section can be placed above a content view section in which the content of a selected tab is displayed. The activation of another tab can result in the display of associated content in the content view section. The entirety of the tabs, however, can be compartmentalized in a single content browser instance, eliminating the need to generate multiple content browser instances and the need to needlessly consume excess computing resources to support the multiple content browser instances. Of course, the placement of multiple content browser instances in a computing desktop can result in unwanted clutter.
Generally speaking, identifying an application window in a cluttered computing desktop can be challenging in the presence of multiple application windows placed on the computing desktop. To address the problem of application window clutter, the modern computing desktop provides for an application bar in which entries in the application bar correspond to an application window displayed in the computing desktop either in a maximized mode, a minimized mode, or a normalized mode as will be recognized by the skilled artisan. The selection of an entry in the application bar results in the activation of the corresponding application in the computing desktop and the setting of focus to the corresponding application.
When an application in the computing document includes a configuration to edit documents, multiple documents can be opened for editing in the single application, and for some applications, multiple different instances of the application can be rendered in the computing desktop. However, in the latter circumstance, in the application bar only a single entry will be provided for the application despite the number of different instances. Rather, a numerical indicator can be provided in the entry indicating how many documents are opened for editing in connection with the application. Moreover, a selection of the entry in the application bar will result in a pop-up window listing the different titles for the different documents opened for editing in the application.
Notably, the behavior of the application bar does not differ for an application configured for tabbed browsing. In this regard, so long as only a single instance of the application is present in the computing desktop, only a single entry in the application bar will be provided, even where multiple tabs are open for the single instance. Moreover, where multiple instances of the application are present in the computing desktop, some of which included multiple tabs, the titles of the different instances of the application will be presented in the pop-up window. Yet, the titles of the different tabs in the different instances of the application will not be presented in the pop-up window. Rather, only the active tab in each of the instances will be presented in the pop-up window. As a result, to view the different tabs, first the host application instance must be activated through the pop-up window and then the different tabs must be activated to identify the content of any given tab.